Introduction
Academic freedom is a foundational condition of higher education because universities depend upon the ability of scholars and students to investigate questions, test established assumptions, teach controversial subjects, exchange ideas, publish research, and participate in institutional life without improper interference or retaliation. The concept is broader than ordinary freedom of speech. It includes freedom in research and teaching, academic exchange, scholarly expression, institutional governance, and the ability of universities themselves to operate with sufficient autonomy from political and other external actors.
The Academic Freedom Index (AFI) provides one of the most systematic comparative efforts to measure these conditions. Developed through the collaboration of Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU), the V-Dem Institute, and associated researchers, the AFI measures the de facto realization of academic freedom rather than merely the existence of formal constitutional or statutory guarantees. The 2026 update covers 179 countries and territories and draws on assessments from 2,357 country experts and more than one million coder-level observations. Its five principal dimensions are freedom to research and teach; freedom of academic exchange and dissemination; institutional autonomy; campus integrity; and freedom of academic and cultural expression (Kinzelbach et al., 2026).
The 2026 report is particularly important for examining India, Canada, and the United States, because their recent trajectories illustrate different ways in which academic freedom can change. Canada continues to have a comparatively high level of measured academic freedom, although the AFI identifies a decline in institutional autonomy. The United States entered the period with a similarly high level but experienced a substantially faster decline, particularly in institutional autonomy after 2019. India has undergone a longer decline, with the AFI’s episode analysis identifying an institutional-autonomy decline beginning in 2013.
The evidence available by September 2026 also permits an important distinction between index measurement and incident reporting. The AFI 2026 Update measures academic freedom through the end of 2025. By contrast, Scholars at Risk’s Free to Think 2026 examines attacks on higher-education communities from July 1, 2025, to June 30, 2026. It documents 382 attacks arising from 321 verified incidents in 59 countries and territories. India accounted for 42 recorded attacks, the highest country count in that report (Scholars at Risk, 2026).
This distinction also resolves a minor numerical ambiguity in recent media coverage, including The Hindu. The September 2026 reporting refers to India’s AFI as approximately 0.14 in 2026, but the underlying AFI observation is the 2025 year-end score of 0.136, rounded to two decimal places. The label “2026” refers to the report edition, not to a newly generated AFI observation covering the whole of calendar year 2026.
1. What the Academic Freedom Index Measures
Academic freedom is multidimensional. The AFI consequently avoids equating academic freedom with the absence of censorship alone. At the individual level, it examines research and teaching, academic exchange and dissemination, and academic and cultural expression. At the institutional level, it examines autonomy and campus integrity.
This distinction matters because an academic may possess a formal right to speak while working in a university whose administrators or external political authorities exercise extensive control over appointments, research funding, curriculum, or institutional governance. Conversely, a university may possess a substantial degree of institutional autonomy while individual students or academics nevertheless face pressure from administrators, colleagues, political groups, or other actors.
The AFI’s 2026 report gives institutional autonomy particular emphasis. Institutional autonomy is understood as the capacity of universities to govern themselves concerning their academic work, standards, management, and related activities without undue interference from the state or other non-academic actors, while remaining subject to public accountability and the general legal framework (Kinzelbach et al., 2026).
The empirical relationship between autonomy and individual freedom is striking. Across 179 countries over 2000–2025, the report calculates a Pearson correlation of 0.91 between institutional autonomy and freedom to research and teach. The authors interpret this as strong evidence that universities with greater autonomy tend to provide stronger protection for individual academic freedom (Kinzelbach et al., 2026).
The global picture is nevertheless one of deterioration. Between 2015 and 2025, the AFI identifies 50 countries with substantial and statistically significant declines, compared with only nine countries with comparable improvements. The largest numbers of declines were recorded in freedom to research and teach and campus integrity, with 51 countries each experiencing substantial and statistically significant decline; 47 experienced decline in academic exchange, 46 in academic and cultural expression, and 43 in institutional autonomy (Kinzelbach et al., 2026).
The report uses a threshold of 0.1 or greater for a substantive change and requires non-overlapping uncertainty intervals for statistical significance. Later figures identify 52 countries with statistically significant decline more generally. This is not necessarily contradictory: the 50-country figure applies the additional substantive-decline threshold, while the 52-country figure identifies statistical decline without necessarily requiring the same magnitude threshold.
The authors further caution that AFI scores should be interpreted with their uncertainty intervals. Where two countries’ intervals overlap, they advise against definitive claims that one country has greater academic freedom than the other.
2. India, Canada, and the United States: The Comparative Trajectory
The revised V-Dem series underlying the 2026 update places the three countries at markedly different 2025 levels. The approximate scores are 0.854 for Canada, 0.397 for the United States, and 0.136 for India (V-Dem Institute, 2026). (Geo Factbook, 2026)
| Country | AFI 2015 | AFI 2025 | Approx. change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Canada | 0.91 | 0.854 | −0.06 |
| United States | 0.92 | 0.397 | −0.52 |
| India | 0.405 | 0.136 | −0.27 |
The three trajectories are analytically different. Canada remains within a relatively high segment of the distribution despite measurable deterioration. The United States experienced a rapid reduction from a historically high position. India has experienced a more prolonged decline from a considerably lower starting point. The attached AFI country figures place Canada in the top 10–20%, the United States in the bottom 30–40%, and India in the bottom 10–20% for 2025.
The 2015–2025 comparison should not be converted mechanically into a judgment about every university in each country. The AFI is a national-level latent-variable measure. A university system can contain institutions with very different practices, and a national decline does not mean that all academics or students experience the same conditions.
3. India: A Long-Term Decline and an Expanding Set of Institutional Conflicts
India’s case is characterized by duration. The AFI’s 2026 episode analysis identifies an institutional-autonomy decline beginning in 2013 and continuing through 2025. Earlier research has sometimes dated the broader academic-freedom decline to around 2012, illustrating the importance of dataset versions and methodological definitions when specifying a precise starting year (Lott, 2024). Accordingly, the most precise statement is that the AFI 2026 episode analysis dates India’s institutional-autonomy decline episode to 2013, while earlier research identifies an onset around 2012.
The newer evidence complements this longitudinal finding with particular cases. Scholars at Risk’s Free to Think 2025 stated that the central government had expanded its authority over higher education, particularly through University Grants Commission reforms, university governance, and appointment structures. The report identified January 2025 UGC regulations allowing non-academics to become eligible for vice-chancellor positions as part of this broader dispute over institutional control. SAR also reported controversy concerning the removal of a previous 10% ceiling on non-permanent contractual faculty in proposed reforms (Scholars at Risk, 2025).
These developments are relevant to academic freedom because employment security, appointment procedures, and university governance can affect the practical willingness of scholars to challenge administrators or external authorities. A formal freedom can become less effective where the institutional cost of exercising it becomes unpredictable.
3.1 Sabyasachi Das — Ashoka University
The Sabyasachi Das controversy at Ashoka University is one of India’s most prominent recent cases. Das, an assistant professor of economics, presented a working paper examining the 2019 Lok Sabha election. The paper considered whether possible manipulation in voter registration and vote counting may have affected the election.
The paper had not been peer-reviewed and was explicitly described by Ashoka University as work in progress. It nevertheless generated substantial public and political controversy. The university formed an ad hoc committee to examine the circumstances surrounding the paper and whether Das had complied with the university’s academic-freedom policy. Das subsequently resigned. His colleagues in the economics and political-science departments criticized the governing body’s intervention, and senior economist Pulapre Balakrishnan also resigned in solidarity (Scholars at Risk, 2023).
The appropriate scholarly formulation is one of contested interpretation. Scholars at Risk characterized the investigation as apparently politically motivated and reported allegations that government-linked actors had taken an interest in the paper. Ashoka University, however, stated publicly that Das possessed academic freedom to conduct his research and attempted to persuade him not to resign. (Ashoka University, 2023) The case is therefore better understood as a dispute over how an institution should respond when politically consequential research attracts external pressure, rather than as a judicially established finding of political censorship.
3.2 Sasanka Perera — South Asian University
In 2024, a PhD proposal concerning the ethnography and politics of Kashmir at South Asian University (SAU) referred to Noam Chomsky’s criticism of the Indian government. The student received a show-cause notice and the student’s supervisor, sociologist Sasanka Perera, became the subject of a disciplinary inquiry. Perera subsequently resigned from the university (Indian Express, 2024).
The case illustrates the significance of supervisory autonomy and research-proposal freedom. A doctoral proposal is inherently exploratory and often contains literature that the university itself may not endorse. The relevant academic-freedom question is therefore not whether an institution may establish standards of scholarly quality, but whether political sensitivity concerning a cited author or research topic becomes a basis for disciplinary scrutiny.
The subsequent departure of the PhD scholar from SAU in early 2025 added to concerns about the academic environment surrounding the original dispute (Indian Express, 2025).
3.3 Apoorvanand Jha — Delhi University
In April 2025, Professor Apoorvanand Jha, a Delhi University Hindi professor, was denied leave to attend an academic symposium at the New School in New York. He had been scheduled to participate in a panel concerning academic freedom and the “global authoritarian turn.” After several levels of university review, the Ministry of Education became involved, and Jha was asked to submit his proposed remarks for approval. He declined, and his leave was not approved (Scholars at Risk, 2025).
The case is significant because it concerns international academic exchange, one of the AFI’s explicit dimensions. It did not involve a formal prohibition on Jha delivering his paper abroad by judicial order; instead, the issue arose through an administrative approval mechanism. Such mechanisms can affect academic freedom even where no explicit restriction on the underlying research exists.
3.4 Ali Khan Mahmudabad — Ashoka University
On May 18, 2025, police arrested Ali Khan Mahmudabad, an associate professor and head of political science at Ashoka University, over social-media comments concerning India’s military action against Pakistan following the Pahalgam attack. Scholars at Risk reported that the comments addressed the government’s military operation and public messaging and that Mahmudabad was subsequently ordered released on bail by the Supreme Court on May 21 (Scholars at Risk, 2025).
This case belongs primarily to the intersection of academic freedom, extramural political expression, and criminal law. The fact that the speech occurred on social media rather than in an academic publication does not automatically remove it from the broader academic-freedom inquiry, particularly where the speaker is an academic and the public controversy concerns whether the university should become a basis for state intervention.
3.5 Madri Kakoti — Lucknow University
On April 29, 2025, police charged Madri Kakoti, an assistant professor of linguistics at Lucknow University, with offences including sedition and causing disharmony in connection with social-media posts concerning the Pahalgam attack and the government’s response. The posts criticized government and media responses and discussed discrimination in India (Scholars at Risk, 2025).
The case again raises the question of extramural academic expression. The relevant legal question is not whether academic status provides absolute immunity from criminal law, but whether the exercise of peaceful political expression by a university employee has been treated differently because of that person’s professional affiliation.
3.6 Lora Santhakumar — SRM Institute of Science and Technology
At SRM Institute of Science and Technology, assistant professor of literature Lora Santhakumar was fired on December 5, 2025, after a disciplinary process concerning WhatsApp-status posts made in May 2025 during India’s military operation against Pakistan. Her posts opposed calls for war, addressed civilian casualties, and urged people not to be afraid to oppose war even where that view was unpopular. The university suspended her on May 8; an internal inquiry subsequently found against her on all counts and recommended expulsion or dismissal. Santhakumar rejected the allegation that she had brought disrepute upon the institution (Scholars at Risk, 2025).
The case is significant for the distinction between professional conduct and extramural speech. Universities can legitimately maintain employment standards, but academic-freedom principles recognize substantial protection for faculty participation in public debate. The relevant legal analysis consequently turns on institutional rules, employment arrangements, proportionality, and the relationship between the expression and legitimate university interests.
3.7 Virendra Balaji Shahare — Jamia Millia Islamia
In December 2025, Virendra Balaji Shahare, a faculty member in Jamia Millia Islamia’s Department of Social Work, was suspended after complaints about a final examination question in Social Problems in India. The question asked students to discuss atrocities against Muslim minorities in India (Scholars at Risk, 2025).
This case is particularly relevant to the AFI because the dispute concerned teaching and assessment, rather than extramural speech. Universities necessarily possess mechanisms to review examination quality, accuracy, professional conduct, and curriculum. The academic-freedom issue arises where disagreement about the pedagogical appropriateness of a controversial subject becomes connected to political rather than scholarly considerations.
3.8 Delhi University: Student Protests and Detentions
Delhi University provides several examples spanning different dimensions of academic freedom.
On May 24, 2025, ABVP members reportedly clashed with other student organizations during a pro-Palestinian demonstration at the university. The organizations involved included the Fraternity Movement, Bhagat Singh Chhatra Ekta Manch, and the All India Students Association. Different groups disputed responsibility for the violence, demonstrating that campus conflict cannot simply be attributed to a single actor (Scholars at Risk, 2025).
On July 9, 2025, Delhi Police Special Cell detained three student activists affiliated with Bhagat Singh Chhatra Ekta Manch. SAR reported that the activists were missing for several days before their detention was confirmed and that allegations of mistreatment were subsequently made. These allegations should be understood as allegations reported by the monitoring organization rather than as an independently adjudicated finding (Scholars at Risk, 2025).
On July 19, 2025, philosophy student and activist Rudra disappeared after travelling from Kolkata to Delhi. SAR reported that he was released on July 21 and connected the incident to the wider series of student detentions (Scholars at Risk, 2025).
These incidents implicate freedom of association, peaceful assembly, campus integrity, and student expression, rather than simply classroom teaching.
3.9 Delhi University: Namita Wahi Seminar
On October 30, 2025, Delhi University cancelled a pre-approved seminar titled Land, Property and Democratic Rights, which was to be delivered by land-policy scholar Namita Wahi as part of the Sociology Department’s established Friday Colloquium series. The Registrar communicated the cancellation one day beforehand and cited “administrative reasons” without a more detailed explanation. The convenor of the series, sociologist Nandini Sundar, subsequently resigned and raised concerns about the intellectual integrity of the series (Scholars at Risk, 2025).
This is an important case involving academic events and exchange. There was no reported allegation that the speaker’s research was academically unsound. Rather, the dispute concerned the institution’s decision to cancel an already approved scholarly event.
3.10 Delhi University: The February 2026 Protest Ban
On February 17, 2026, Delhi University prohibited public meetings, rallies, demonstrations, and protests across campus for one month. The measure followed a February 14 protest concerning new UGC regulations on caste discrimination. The university cited concerns about law and order and the organizers’ inability to control the protest. SAR later reported that protest activity was subject to advance authorization requirements (Scholars at Risk, 2026).
This case illustrates an enduring tension in university governance: institutions have legitimate responsibilities for safety and academic continuity, but restrictions on protest can affect students’ ability to participate in the political and intellectual life of the campus.
3.11 Jamia Millia Islamia: Student Protest and Police Action
On September 19, 2025, Delhi Police forcibly detained members of the All India Students Association during a demonstration at Jamia Millia Islamia marking the seventeenth anniversary of the Batla House encounter. According to SAR, students alleged that police used disproportionate force and that students were physically removed from campus. Videos reportedly showed students being dragged and detained (Scholars at Risk, 2025).
On December 18, 2025, Jamia also served show-cause notices on students participating in a peaceful protest commemorating the fifth anniversary of the 2020 police crackdown associated with anti-CAA demonstrations. The university case record identifies this alongside the September protest and the December faculty case as part of the institution’s recent academic-freedom controversies.
3.12 TISS and the Keffiyeh Case
At the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, the diploma of master’s graduate Ablaz Mohammed Schemnad was temporarily withheld after he wore a keffiyeh at his graduation ceremony in September 2024. The university later awarded his degree after he submitted three written apologies (Scholars at Risk, 2024).
Although the incident involved a graduation ceremony rather than academic research, it illustrates the broader campus-expression dimension of academic freedom. The university regarded the garment as a breach of decorum; SAR treated the withholding of the diploma as a response to expressive activity. The eventual reversal also demonstrates that institutional decisions can be reconsidered.
3.13 Banaras Hindu University and Kedar Mishra
On January 20, 2026, Banaras Hindu University cancelled a lecture by journalist and poet Kedar Mishra, reportedly in response to government pressure. The lecture was organized under the Kabi Samrat Upendra Bhanja Odia Chair and concerned the work of nineteenth-century Odia saint and philosopher Bhima Bhoi. SAR reports that organizers told Mishra the event had been cancelled because the government opposed his participation (Scholars at Risk, 2026).
The significance of this episode lies in academic-event autonomy. The evidence for government involvement is reported rather than established through a court finding, so the appropriate characterization is that the cancellation was reported as being connected to government pressure.
3.14 Mumbai University and Naseeruddin Shah
On January 31, 2026, Mumbai University disinvited actor Naseeruddin Shah from a literary and cultural event organized by its Urdu department. Shah had been scheduled to recite poetry the following day. The university gave no official reason at the time and reportedly told the audience that Shah had declined the invitation. Shah subsequently said that a university official objected to his public statements concerning the government (Scholars at Risk, 2026).
Again, the evidentiary distinction is important: the university’s official explanation and Shah’s account differ. The academic-freedom relevance lies in the cancellation of an invited cultural figure from a university event and the allegations concerning political considerations.
3.15 University of Hyderabad: The Holi Play
In May 2026, student groups at the University of Hyderabad clashed during a performance of Mahesh Elkunchwar’s play Holi, which examines caste hierarchy within educational institutions. Members of ABVP objected to the performance, alleging that aspects of it were offensive to Hindu sentiments. Organizers stated that some individuals attempted to disrupt the performance and that stones and bottles were thrown; ABVP members disputed this account and maintained that they were peacefully protesting before being attacked. Two students were injured and required stitches (Scholars at Risk, 2026).
This episode illustrates that academic freedom can be threatened by non-state actors and intra-campus political conflict as well as by governments or university administrators. The issue is not simply whether a university is autonomous from government, but whether it can protect academic activity while allowing peaceful dissent.
3.16 The NCERT Textbook Litigation
A major 2026 development involved a textbook prepared with participation by Michel Danino, Alok Prasanna Kumar, and Suparna Diwakar for the National Council of Educational Research and Training. A chapter referred to “corruption in the judiciary.” On February 26, 2026, the Supreme Court halted publication of the textbook; on March 11 it barred the three scholars from future publicly funded curriculum development and required government institutions to dissociate them from such work (Scholars at Risk, 2026).
The decision was subsequently modified. On May 22, 2026, the Supreme Court permitted states, public universities, and other institutions to make an independent decision about whether the scholars could participate in future curriculum development. The Court also expunged the allegation that the academics had deliberately misrepresented facts to create a negative image of the judiciary (Scholars at Risk, 2026).
This episode illustrates why a rigorous academic-freedom analysis should consider not merely the existence of a restriction but also judicial reconsideration and institutional correction. It also demonstrates that the relevant source of restriction may sometimes be judicial rather than executive.
3.17 Jammu and Kashmir: Books and Scholarly Material
In August 2025, the Jammu and Kashmir administration ordered the forfeiture of 25 books concerning Kashmir, citing concerns relating to sovereignty, national integrity, and secessionism. The books reportedly included works by writers and scholars including Arundhati Roy, A. G. Noorani, Sumantra Bose, and Christopher Snedden. (Indian Express, 2025)
The legal issue here is the relationship between national-security regulation and scholarly access to contested historical and political material. The government’s stated justification concerns public order and national security; critics have raised concerns about the effects of restricting access to competing interpretations of Kashmir.
The significance increased during 2026 as scrutiny reportedly extended beyond books to educational material, publications, theses, dissertations, and digital repositories. These measures are particularly relevant to academic freedom because universities and researchers depend upon access to primary and secondary sources for independent scholarship.
4. United States: Rapid Deterioration in Institutional Autonomy
The United States exhibits a different pattern. The AFI reports that institutional autonomy declined from 3.3 in 2019 to 1.7 in 2025, moving from the category of substantial autonomy into moderate autonomy. The report describes the decline as unusually rapid and compares it with longer decline episodes in India, Hungary, and Türkiye (Kinzelbach et al., 2026).
The report identifies interventions involving federal funding, accreditation, university governance, research agendas, admissions, and hiring as mechanisms through which institutional autonomy became contested.
The Scholars at Risk evidence adds several individual cases.
4.1 Columbia University and Federal Funding
On March 7, 2025, several U.S. federal agencies notified Columbia University of an impending cancellation of approximately $400 million in federal grants and contracts, citing the university’s handling of antisemitism and campus conditions. SAR recorded the episode as an institutional-autonomy concern (Scholars at Risk, 2025).
The later trajectory is important: the March action was not the final disposition. Columbia and the federal government reached a settlement in July 2025, with Reuters reporting that most of the affected federal funding was restored. (Reuters, 2025)
This illustrates an important feature of contemporary American academic-freedom disputes: funding can function as an instrument of university governance, but institutional and legal responses can substantially alter the final outcome.
4.2 Mahmoud Khalil — Columbia University
On March 8, 2025, immigration authorities detained Mahmoud Khalil, a recent Columbia graduate and lawful permanent resident, in circumstances SAR described as apparent retaliation for his pro-Palestinian student activism. A federal district judge subsequently issued a temporary restraining order preventing his removal while the legal proceedings developed (Scholars at Risk, 2025).
The case raises issues beyond university discipline because it involves the interaction between political expression, student activism, immigration authority, and due process. SAR’s concern was explicitly connected to the use of immigration mechanisms against an individual participating in nonviolent expressive activity.
4.3 Yunseo Chung — Columbia University
On the same day, an ICE official signed an administrative arrest warrant for Yunseo Chung, a Columbia undergraduate and lawful permanent resident, in connection with her participation in pro-Palestinian activism. SAR reported that immigration authorities initially treated her status as revocable despite her permanent-resident status and that legal proceedings followed (Scholars at Risk, 2025).
The case illustrates how university-based political expression can become connected to federal immigration enforcement, a mechanism institutionally distinct from normal university disciplinary procedures.
4.4 Rümeysa Öztürk — Tufts University
On March 26, 2025, DHS detained Rümeysa Öztürk, a doctoral student at Tufts University. SAR reported that the detention appeared connected to an opinion article she had co-authored in the Tufts student newspaper on the Israel-Palestine conflict. SAR also noted that she had not been charged with a crime at the time of its report (Scholars at Risk, 2025).
The case concerns the boundary between student journalism, political expression, immigration powers, and academic participation. It is not identical to a university censorship case, but it demonstrates how external state power can alter the circumstances within which members of university communities exercise expression.
4.5 Badar Khan Suri — Georgetown University
On March 17, 2025, DHS detained Badar Khan Suri, a Georgetown professor and postdoctoral fellow studying peacebuilding in Iraq and Afghanistan. SAR described the detention as apparently related to unspecified free-expression activities (Scholars at Risk, 2025).
The case is particularly relevant to academic freedom because Suri’s research and university position formed part of the context in which the federal government intervened. It demonstrates the importance of academic mobility and immigration status to an increasingly international higher-education sector.
4.6 Jonathan Brown — Georgetown University
On June 26, 2025, Georgetown removed Jonathan Brown from his position as department chair after controversy surrounding an X post concerning U.S.-Iran hostilities. Brown retained his faculty position but was placed on leave pending investigation. SAR reported that elected officials and a media campaign had exerted pressure on the institution (Scholars at Risk, 2025).
The case is a classic example of the tension between extramural expression and academic leadership. The issue was not Brown’s research competence but the institutional response to public political speech by a faculty member.
4.7 Anna Kenney — Emory University
On September 18, 2025, Emory University dismissed Anna Kenney, an associate professor at its medical school, following controversy over social-media posts concerning the killing of political activist Charlie Kirk. Elected officials publicly demanded action against her, and SAR reported that some of the public campaign included references to federal funding.
Emory’s own internal governance mechanism subsequently became important. Its Committee for Open Expression concluded that Kenney’s dismissal was inconsistent with the university’s Open Expression Policy and that proper disciplinary procedures had apparently not been followed. (Scholars at Risk, 2025).
This provides an important example of institutional self-correction. Academic freedom can be challenged by university administration while university governance structures can also provide a mechanism for reviewing the decision.
4.8 Tenure and Faculty Governance
The American debate has also moved beyond individual speech controversies. In 2025, Indiana enacted measures affecting tenure and faculty governance, while South Dakota adopted a five-year post-tenure review requirement for tenured faculty at public institutions. Texas likewise enacted regulations affecting expressive activity and governance structures at public institutions (Scholars at Risk, 2025).
These developments matter because tenure is an institutional safeguard, not simply an employment benefit. It can reduce the professional consequences of research and teaching that challenge prevailing political preferences. At the same time, tenure does not imply immunity from disciplinary proceedings based upon established professional standards.
The AFI’s institutional-autonomy argument is especially relevant here: where political appointees obtain greater influence over hiring, governance, funding, or curriculum, individual academic freedom may become more vulnerable.
4.9 Florida International University — 2026
In June 2026, Florida International University disciplined seven students who participated in a protest concerning the university’s relationship with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. According to SAR, the students had worn shirts stating “ICE OFF FIU” and participated in a protest without disrupting an event. They nevertheless received disciplinary measures that included reprimands and an exercise requiring them to demonstrate an understanding of campus expressive-action policies (Scholars at Risk, 2026).
The case raises the issue of campus expression and compelled speech. Universities have legitimate authority to regulate demonstrations to preserve safety and academic functioning, but the academic-freedom implications depend on how narrowly those restrictions are designed and applied.
4.10 Legal and Institutional Resistance
The U.S. story cannot be understood solely through restrictions. The AFI report expressly records judicial resistance to federal restrictions on research funding, including litigation concerning federal limits on research overhead reimbursement. According to the report, courts rejected some government-imposed constraints and the majority of affected grant applications were reinstated (Kinzelbach et al., 2026).
The report therefore presents the United States as a case in which institutional autonomy has undergone rapid deterioration while constitutional litigation, university resistance, academic organizations, and civil society continue to act as countervailing institutions.
5. Canada: High Measured Protection with Institutional Vulnerabilities
Canada occupies a different position in the AFI data. Its 2025 score of approximately 0.854 remains within the higher portion of the international distribution, but the 2026 report identifies Canada as one of the countries where institutional autonomy was very well protected in 2015 but subsequently declined significantly. Canada appears in Figure 5 alongside the United States and several European countries.
Canada’s legal structure is also distinctive. The Canadian Association of University Teachers notes that academic freedom is often protected through collective agreements and institutional policies, rather than through a single comprehensive constitutional provision devoted specifically to academic freedom (CAUT, 2025). (CAUT, 2025)
Quebec has gone further. Its Act respecting academic freedom in the university sector establishes statutory protections concerning teaching, research, publication, participation in academic organizations, and opinions about society and institutions. (Légis Québec, 2022)
5.1 Denise Helly — Institut national de la recherche scientifique
In January 2024, Quebec’s higher-education minister refused to approve the appointment of sociologist Denise Helly to the board of the Institut national de la recherche scientifique (INRS). Her appointment had been selected through the university’s internal process. The controversy concerned, among other things, Helly’s research interests and an earlier association with controversial preacher Adil Charkaoui. (FQPPU, 2024)
A permanent expert committee on academic freedom, COPLA, subsequently concluded that, absent sufficiently serious reasons consistent with Quebec’s Academic Freedom Act, the refusal to approve the appointment constituted an infringement of academic freedom. This conclusion belongs to COPLA; it should not be represented as a judicial ruling.
The case is important because it involves institutional appointments rather than classroom teaching. It illustrates how political participation in university governance can become an academic-freedom question when a government rejects an individual selected through an internal university process.
5.2 Dawson and Vanier Colleges — Palestinian Literature and Campus Climate
In 2024–2025, Quebec became embroiled in controversies concerning courses and campus events associated with the Israel-Palestine conflict at Dawson College and Vanier College. Higher Education Minister Pascale Déry launched an investigation into the campus climate following complaints concerning safety, student organizations, and the handling of sensitive academic material.
The Quebec government’s June 2025 report recommended that colleges reconsider the competencies and responsibilities attached to language courses while explicitly taking account of academic freedom, and recommended formal criteria concerning invited speakers and event themes. (Government of Québec, 2025).
The controversy involved competing claims. Faculty and academic-freedom advocates criticized ministerial intervention as a potential intrusion into academic decision-making, while government representatives emphasized student safety, campus climate, and institutional responsibility. The official investigation itself illustrates why academic freedom cannot always be reduced to a simple censorship-versus-freedom dichotomy: curricular independence can come into conflict with legitimate concerns about safety, harassment, or discrimination.
5.3 University of Guelph — People’s Conference for Palestinian Solidarity
In November 2025, the University of Guelph cancelled the People’s Conference for Palestinian Solidarity shortly before the planned event. The Middle East Studies Association subsequently wrote to the university expressing concern about the cancellation and its implications for academic freedom and scholarly exchange. (MESA, 2025)
The case is significant because conferences represent an important part of academic exchange and dissemination. Cancellation of an event does not itself establish unlawful censorship; universities can cancel events for legitimate operational or safety reasons. The academic-freedom issue therefore depends upon the reasons, procedures, and proportionality involved.
5.4 Ruth Marshall — University of Toronto
In September 2025, Ruth Marshall, an associate professor at the University of Toronto, was placed on leave after a social-media post that multiple news outlets interpreted as relating to Charlie Kirk’s killing. Marshall disputed that characterization and stated that she was responding to videos concerning children killed in Gaza. The university said it had taken immediate action after learning of “concerning social media posts” and that the matter was being investigated. The Jackman Humanities Building was temporarily closed “out of an abundance of caution” following online comments (The Varsity, 2025).
This is a case where the meaning of the underlying expression is itself contested. It should therefore not be summarized as though the university had conclusively established that Marshall was celebrating a killing. The relevant academic-freedom question concerns the relationship among social-media speech, safety threats, faculty employment, and university disciplinary authority.
5.5 Florence Ashley — University of Alberta
In September 2025, University of Alberta law professor Florence Ashley was placed on non-disciplinary leave following social-media comments concerning Charlie Kirk’s death. The university stated that the action was connected to safety concerns. Ashley argued that the posts fell within academic freedom and freedom of expression and criticized the process by which the leave was imposed (Ashley, 2025).
Importantly, Ashley was subsequently reinstated. The university said the review found no continuing safety risk, while Ashley maintained that questions remained about the original decision (Canadian Press, 2025).
The case is therefore useful for examining the distinction between a disciplinary sanction and a safety intervention. It also demonstrates the importance of reversibility and institutional review in assessing the eventual effect on academic freedom.
5.6 University of Lethbridge — Frances Widdowson
A particularly significant new development occurred in September 2026. The University of Lethbridge had approved a February 2023 lecture by Frances Widdowson, titled How Woke-ism Threatens Academic Freedom. After faculty members, students, alumni, and others requested cancellation, the university reversed its decision and cancelled the lecture, citing concerns about potential harm to the campus community.
Widdowson and student Jonah Pickle challenged the decision under the Canadian Charter. On September 17, 2026, the Alberta Court of King’s Bench quashed the university’s cancellation decision. According to the published account of the judgment, Justice C. D. Simard found that the university had erred in law by failing to consider Charter-protected freedom of expression and rejected the characterization of the decision simply as a room-booking issue. The Court also recognized the audience member’s interest in being able to hear the lecture (Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms, 2026).
This development should be described accurately as a 2026 judgment concerning a lecture cancelled in 2023. The court did not order the university to hold the lecture because the scheduled date had long passed.
The case is significant for two reasons. First, it illustrates judicial review as a check on university decision-making. Second, it shows that academic freedom encompasses not only the speaker’s right to express ideas but, under the Court’s reasoning, the audience’s ability to receive that expression.
Because the principal publicly accessible source used here is the litigant-side Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms rather than the full judgment itself, the case description should be read as a report of the judicial decision pending direct examination of the complete reasons.
6. Three Different Forms of Academic-Freedom Pressure
The cases reveal that the statistical differences among India, Canada, and the United States are accompanied by differences in how pressure is exerted.
In India, the cases include faculty dismissal, criminal prosecution, university discipline, restrictions on student demonstrations, cancellations of academic events, scrutiny of curriculum, limitations concerning research exchange, and state regulation of university governance. The common thread is not one single mechanism but an expanding range of institutional settings in which political or social controversy becomes connected to university decision-making.
In the United States, the central development is the speed with which institutional autonomy has changed. Government funding, accreditation, immigration enforcement, tenure, faculty governance, curriculum, and student protest have all become sites of dispute. The AFI’s institutional-autonomy trajectory provides the longitudinal evidence for this transformation.
In Canada, the national environment remains relatively high on the AFI measure, but cases such as Dawson, Denise Helly, the University of Guelph, Ruth Marshall, Florence Ashley, and the University of Lethbridge demonstrate that academic freedom remains contested. The Canadian cases frequently involve institutional policies, government appointments, campus safety, speech controversies, and judicial review rather than the wider pattern of state pressure documented in India and the United States.
The comparison therefore demonstrates why the AFI should be understood as a measure of national institutional conditions, not as an exhaustive catalogue of individual incidents.
7. Academic Freedom, Institutional Autonomy, and the Role of the State
One of the most important conceptual findings of the AFI is that institutional autonomy is not synonymous with freedom from all government involvement. Universities operate under public law, receive public funds, and are subject to accountability requirements. Institutional autonomy instead protects a sphere of academic decision-making against undue political or external interference (Kinzelbach et al., 2026).
This distinction is visible in all three countries.
In India, controversy concerning UGC regulations and vice-chancellor appointments concerns who should exercise authority over university governance. In the United States, federal funding and accreditation have become mechanisms through which national officials can influence universities. In Canada, government involvement in university board appointments in Quebec similarly raises questions about the appropriate boundary between public authority and institutional self-government.
At the same time, university autonomy does not create an unlimited institutional right to suppress individual academics. Universities themselves can violate academic freedom through dismissal, event cancellation, disciplinary action, or restrictions on political expression. The academic-freedom principle therefore operates in two directions: universities require protection from external political interference, and scholars require protection from the institutions in which they work.
This dual character is reflected in Scholars at Risk’s formulation that academic freedom requires both institutional autonomy and protection for intramural and extramural expression. (Scholars at Risk, 2025).
8. Academic Freedom and Freedom of Expression Are Related but Not Identical
The legal relationship between academic freedom and general freedom of expression differs among India, Canada, and the United States.
In Canada, section 2(b) of the Canadian Charter protects freedom of thought, belief, opinion, and expression. Quebec has additionally enacted specific academic-freedom legislation. (Government of Canada, 2026; Légis Québec, 2022)
In the United States, the First Amendment provides constitutional protection against government restrictions on expression, but the legal position differs depending upon whether a university is public or private and whether the disputed conduct involves government action, employment, contractual rules, or university policy. The contemporary American cases demonstrate how these categories can overlap.
In India, Article 19(1)(a) protects freedom of speech and expression subject to constitutionally permitted restrictions. Academic freedom intersects with this right but is not codified as a single comprehensive fundamental right equivalent to the AFI’s full multidimensional concept.
Accordingly, an AFI decline should not automatically be equated with a judicial finding that every underlying incident violates constitutional law. The AFI is an empirical comparative instrument. Legal responsibility in an individual case must still be determined under the relevant constitutional, statutory, administrative, contractual, and procedural rules.
9. What the 2026 Scholars at Risk Evidence Adds
The release of Free to Think 2026 adds an important layer of evidence that was not available when the AFI’s 2025 observations were compiled.
SAR reports 382 attacks arising from 321 verified incidents in 59 countries and territories between July 1, 2025, and June 30, 2026. It identifies government interference with university autonomy, curriculum, research funding, university governance, and student expression as major global themes.
For India, SAR reports 42 attacks, including violence, imprisonment, loss of position, restrictions on academic expression, and restrictions on student activity. It specifically identifies growing governmental influence over university governance and academic priorities and describes restrictions on curriculum and campus expression.
For the United States, SAR identifies government intervention in university funding, governance, curriculum, research, and cross-border academic activity.
The evidence is different for Canada. Canada does not appear in the new SAR report in the same manner as India and the United States. Consequently, Canada’s contemporary picture is better reconstructed from Canadian university policies, provincial government materials, legal proceedings, academic organizations, and individual cases.
SAR itself warns that its incident totals are not exhaustive. Fear of reporting, restricted media environments, difficulties in verification, and limited monitoring resources mean that the figures represent only a fraction of all attacks. (Scholars at Risk, 2025).
10. Interpreting the India–Canada–United States Comparison Carefully
The numerical difference between the three AFI scores is substantial, but the more analytically useful comparison concerns trajectory and institutional mechanism.
India’s current score reflects a lower starting point combined with a prolonged decline. The cases involving Sabyasachi Das, Sasanka Perera, Apoorvanand Jha, Ali Khan Mahmudabad, Madri Kakoti, Lora Santhakumar, the Jamia and Delhi University protests, the Namita Wahi seminar, the TISS diploma, Kedar Mishra, the Mumbai University invitation, the University of Hyderabad performance, and the NCERT textbook dispute demonstrate the range of settings in which academic freedom has become contested.
The United States shows a high starting point followed by rapid deterioration, particularly in institutional autonomy. The cases involving Columbia, Mahmoud Khalil, Yunseo Chung, Rümeysa Öztürk, Badar Khan Suri, Jonathan Brown, Anna Kenney, faculty governance, tenure, and Florida International University demonstrate that this deterioration extends across funding, immigration, employment, governance, research, and student expression.
Canada shows a comparatively high level combined with measurable institutional erosion and specific controversies. The cases involving Denise Helly, Dawson and Vanier, the University of Guelph, Ruth Marshall, Florence Ashley, and Frances Widdowson demonstrate that academic freedom is not a static achievement even within a relatively protective environment.
The correct comparative conclusion is therefore not that the three systems face the same problem. They do not. Rather, academic freedom is vulnerable through multiple institutional pathways, and the pathways differ by jurisdiction.
11. Institutional Resilience and the Possibility of Correction
The cases also show why decline should not be understood as an irreversible linear process.
In the United States, litigation has resulted in restrictions being placed on some federal attempts to reduce or control university research funding. The AFI report specifically identifies courts and institutional resistance as mechanisms capable of limiting executive intervention.
In India, the Supreme Court’s May 2026 modification of its earlier NCERT order significantly altered the consequences for the academics involved, permitting independent institutional decisions about their participation in future curriculum development and removing an adverse characterization concerning their intentions.
In Canada, Florence Ashley was reinstated after the University of Alberta’s review found no continuing safety risk, while the University of Lethbridge judgment demonstrates judicial review of university decision-making.
These examples are institutionally significant because academic freedom depends not only on the absence of restrictions but also on the existence of mechanisms capable of correcting disproportionate or procedurally defective restrictions.
Lott, Kinzelbach, and Lindberg (2025) likewise argue that universities can exhibit substantial resilience even in periods of democratic backsliding. Their comparative work suggests that institutional organization, leadership, professional norms, and collective resistance can influence whether academic freedom deteriorates irreversibly or survives periods of political pressure.
Conclusion
The Academic Freedom Index 2026 provides a valuable longitudinal framework for understanding academic freedom in India, Canada, and the United States. Its importance lies in treating academic freedom not as a single right but as a multidimensional institutional condition encompassing teaching, research, exchange, expression, campus integrity, and institutional autonomy.
The 2025 AFI estimates place Canada at approximately 0.854, the United States at approximately 0.397, and India at approximately 0.136. The figures should be read with uncertainty intervals, but the broader trajectories are clear enough to warrant detailed comparative investigation. Canada remains within the upper segment of the international distribution despite a measurable decline. The United States has undergone a markedly rapid reduction in institutional autonomy, from 3.3 in 2019 to 1.7 in 2025. India has experienced a longer-running decline, with the AFI’s episode analysis identifying 2013 as the beginning of its institutional-autonomy decline episode.
The concrete cases illuminate what these aggregate measurements mean.
In India, the evidence spans scholarly research, doctoral supervision, faculty employment, examination content, student protest, academic travel, academic conferences, literary events, textbooks, university governance, and access to politically sensitive literature. The cases of Sabyasachi Das, Sasanka Perera, Apoorvanand Jha, Ali Khan Mahmudabad, Madri Kakoti, Lora Santhakumar, Virendra Balaji Shahare, Kedar Mishra, and others demonstrate that academic-freedom disputes can arise at virtually every level of university activity.
In the United States, the crucial development is the pace of institutional change. Federal funding, accreditation, immigration enforcement, tenure, faculty governance, research funding, student activism, and social-media expression became interconnected sites of conflict during 2025–2026. The AFI’s institutional-autonomy figures provide the structural evidence, while cases involving Columbia, Tufts, Georgetown, Emory, and Florida International University show how institutional pressure can reach individual academics and students.
In Canada, the overall environment remains comparatively high on the AFI, yet the country’s experience demonstrates that high protection does not eliminate institutional vulnerability. The Denise Helly appointment controversy, Dawson and Vanier disputes, University of Guelph conference cancellation, University of Toronto and University of Alberta cases, and the University of Lethbridge judgment demonstrate the continuing importance of university autonomy, freedom of expression, campus safety, and procedural safeguards.
The new Free to Think 2026 report adds a further dimension to this analysis. It records 382 attacks on higher-education communities internationally during July 2025–June 2026 and identifies state interference in university autonomy, curricula, research funding, governance, and student expression as major contemporary concerns. India accounted for 42 recorded attacks, while the United States was among the countries experiencing significant government intervention in higher education.
The central empirical lesson of the AFI is the relationship between institutional autonomy and individual academic freedom. The reported correlation of 0.91 between institutional autonomy and freedom to research and teach is unusually strong in comparative social-science terms and supports the proposition that individual academics are better positioned to pursue difficult or unpopular scholarship when their institutions possess meaningful autonomy.
Yet autonomy is only one part of the equation. Universities themselves must observe due process, protect dissent, and respect the rights of their own academic communities. Governments must reconcile public accountability with institutional independence. Courts must distinguish legitimate regulation from impermissible interference. Student organizations and faculty groups must be able to contest university decisions without resorting to violence. And universities must maintain environments in which controversial ideas can be confronted through debate rather than removed merely because they generate disagreement or discomfort.
The comparative evidence from India, Canada, and the United States consequently suggests that the health of academic freedom depends upon a system of institutional checks rather than a single legal guarantee. Constitutional rights, university autonomy, tenure or employment security, transparent disciplinary procedures, academic governance, judicial review, and the capacity of academic communities to resist improper pressure all operate as parts of that system.
For comparative higher-education research, the most useful questions therefore extend beyond the numerical score. They are: How has academic freedom changed over time? Which of its five dimensions has changed? Who is exerting the pressure? Through what institutional mechanism? What legal protections apply? And what avenues exist for correction when those protections fail? The answers to those questions provide a more complete picture of academic freedom than any isolated ranking or country score.
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